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ASO announces 2014-15 concert season

The Auburn Symphony Orchestra has announced its 18th season of programs at its temporary home while the Auburn Performing Arts Center is being renovated.

All three concerts will be performed at the Theater at Auburn Mountainview, 28900 124th Ave. SE, Auburn.

The series opens with Welcome to Mountainview on Oct. 11 and 12, featuring Beethoven's sunny and cheerful Symphony No. 4. Also featured are Prokoviev's Violin Concerto No. 2 with ASO concertmaster Brittany Boulding, soloist, and Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture inspired by the power and beauty of the sea and cliffs while vacationing on the islands off Scotland.

ASO's Feb. 14-15 concert is a Valentine weekend program of merriment and romance. Otto Nicolai's tuneful and light-hearted overture from his opera, The Merry Wives of Windsor, is based on Shakespeare's play. Delius' The Walk to the Paradise Garden is his most impressive orchestral work from his opera, A Village Romeo and Juliet. Also featured is Tomasi's Trumpet Concerto and Arban's Carnival in Venice with 15-year-old Natalie Dungey, who amazed ASO audiences with her performances of The Trumpeter's Lullaby in 2009 and Hummel's Trumpet Concerto in 2011.

The orchestra ends the season by taking audiences on a grand tour of Europe, featuring works from English, Austrian, French and Italian composers. The program opens with Mozart's Symphony No. 29, a work influenced by the adolescent genius' second journey with his father to Italy. Vivaldi composed his Concerto for Bassoon in A Minor around 1734.

ASO principal bassoon Mona Butler will solo in this work as well as Elgar's Romance for Bassoon and Orchestra, a beautifully written and sensitive piece that is classically British in style. Bizet's L'Arlésienne Suites are concert hall favorites—energetic works taken from the incidental music the composer wrote for an Alfred Daudet play.

ASO is supported in part by the City of Auburn. Founded in 1996, the fully-professional orchestra has more than 60 musicians led by Stewart Kershaw, internationally-renowned conductor and former music director for 25 years of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra.

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